Sat 08 August 2020:
The United States Department of State said in a letter it has repeatedly requested that Saudi Arabia “clarify the status and nature” of the detention of two children of a former top Saudi intelligence, who has been credited with protecting Americans from al-Qaida threats.
A letter signed by a state department official said any persecution of Saad Aljabri’s family members by Saudi authorities was “unacceptable” and urged the “immediate release” of the two children, Omar and Sarah Aljabri, who were arrested from their home in Riyadh in March and have been held in detention indefinitely.
The letter was released shortly after Aljabri filed a lawsuit against Mohammed bin Salman and other Saudi officials in a district court in Washington DC alleging that the Saudi crown prince was conspiring to kidnap and murder Aljabri from his home in Canada, where he has lived in exile.
Omar Aljabri and his father, Saad Aljabri. Photograph: Supplied
While details were scarce and could not be independently confirmed, the suit has alleged that Canadian authorities thwarted a plan by a Saudi hit squad to enter Canada and harm Aljabri just two weeks after the murder of the Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi in a Saudi consulate in Istanbul.
Al-Jabri had earlier attempted to get his children to leave Saudi Arabia, but authorities had placed them under a travel ban, according to reports.
The former spy filed a lawsuit [PDF] in US federal court on Thursday that accused MBS of dispatching people to hunt him down in the US and sending a hit squad to kill him in Canada. The latter plot was foiled because the hit team, referred to as “the Tiger Squad” was denied entry to Canada, court documents said.
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Sarah Aljabri and her father Saad Aljabri, former Saudi security official who immigrated to Canada in 2017 with most members of his family. COURTESY OF FAMILY
The suit claims that MBS has been trying to kill al-Jabri for the past three years, that “Defendant bin Salman continues in his attempted extrajudicial killing to this day”, and that MBS has obtained “a ruling by religious authorities endorsing the killing of Dr. Saad [Al-Jabri]”
The Saudi royal family is holding Sarah and Omar Aljabri as hostages. Hostage taking is never justified. For a government to use such tactics is abhorrent. They should be released immediately. https://t.co/wqr22IEX1S pic.twitter.com/VdCpp0NZxV
— Sen. Patrick Leahy (@SenatorLeahy) July 9, 2020
The letter is significant because the Trump administration has been reluctant to criticise human rights violations by the Saudi government even after the murder of Khashoggi, a US-based Saudi journalist.
It is also noteworthy because the letter included high praise for Aljabri, who served as the US embassy in Riyadh’s counterpart on counter-terrorism. Aljabri, the letter said, had “responded around the clock to threats against our mission and personnel” and had kept US citizens safe.
Al-Jabri had access to the highest levels of information in decades as an intelligence officer working closely with US counterparts.
The four US senators who have sought to help him wrote last month: “As a top intelligence officer in Saudi Arabia, Dr Al-Jabri has been credited by former CIA officials for saving thousands of American lives by discovering and preventing terrorist plots.”
They said the US has a “moral obligation to do what it can to assist in securing his children’s freedom”.
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